


Black Night, Morning Frost

by lethifolde



Category: In The Flesh
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Post-Season/Series 02, Simon POV, but also it's vaguely ambiguous so there's that, post s02e06
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-26
Updated: 2017-12-26
Packaged: 2019-02-21 23:16:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13154079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lethifolde/pseuds/lethifolde
Summary: There are conversations to be had, questions to be answered. Honesty is the path to absolution. Absolution is the path to healing.





	Black Night, Morning Frost

**Author's Note:**

> Several years too late but better than never. Title shamelessly stolen from The Mountain Goats' song, Cry For Judas. Liberties taken with Simon's past and the biological capabilities of zombie lovin'. Precariously unbeta'd, any and all mistakes are my own.

"Hang on, I'll walk you back."

  
Simon is hovering in the doorway, backpack hoisted onto one shoulder. He looks from Kieren, who is staring at him, across to Sue and Steve; Steve looks like he's about to argue, though Kieren is already pulling on his overcoat, is already standing close to Simon. The rest of the guests have left, just piles of paper plates and the _smorgeous_ decorations Amy wanted to be tidied up.

The day has been long and sad, though it is barely three o’clock, and he has spent most of it standing by himself in the corner of the front room. Shirley came over, tried to talk, but there wasn't much either really wanted to say to the other. Steve and Sue had come over, but Simon has never been much good at talking to parents, either, so mostly he just sat, watching people talk about a girl most of them had feared right up until the day she died.

He doesn't want to be here, suddenly. He wants to be back at the bungalow (calling it home still doesn't sound right) and not in the middle of more fucking drama. Slowly, he edges himself further through the doorway until Kieren's fingers wrap around his wrist.

"Be back in time for dinner, won't you, love?" Sue says, before Steve can say anything. Her eyes skitter from where Kieren's grip is tight on Simon's wrist and back up to their faces.

"Sure, Mum," Kieren says, but he is looking at Simon, and Simon's face would be growing hot if it could.

The wind has picked up again, buffeting them along the streets of Roarton, something between rain and snow flying about them. It's quieter than usual, which is saying something, without even the twitch of curtains as they walk past the neighbours' houses. Whether it's the wind or Kieren's stiff-legged walk, they keep brushing into each other, though Simon's hand is firmly attached to the strap of his backpack and Kieren has plunged both of his deep into the pockets of his coat.

They haven't had time to talk, not really, since Amy died. There have been funeral preparations and besides, Simon hasn't felt like talking. When they have seen each other, stolen moments alone between Steve or Sue or Jem insisting they need to be there, it's been mostly to sit in silence and just be, trying for a vague sense of peace that doesn't quite exist, but they can pretend. Not that Simon knows what peace is, really, but the closest it's felt has been with Kieren.

He wonders if he's supposed to say something now. He feels itchy, sort of, with the things left unsaid, the truth tearing at him, eating him up from the inside. He hoists his backpack higher, opens his mouth to say something stupid.

Then:

"Why were you in the city?" Kieren asks.

Right. Not what Simon had expected. Not at that moment, at least, picking up the thread of their old conversation as if Phillip hadn't walking in with a blood-soaked Amy in his arms, and that is not an image he wants in his head. He's a few paces ahead when he realises that Kieren has stopped walking, is standing ramrod straight in the middle of the road. All around him, the sleet tosses and turns, whipping up the edges of his coat.

It might be funny if it wasn't all so grim and serious.

"You left, Simon," Kieren says, and here it is, all that anger, all that rage, all that beautiful viciousness he has been holding back. Simon straightens, stiffens. "You left, and you didn't say anything, and everything here just went to shit."

Kieren takes a big breath of cool air, and it seems to calm him. Simon watches his body slouch forward.

"My family wouldn't look at me. A-Amy was all kinds of weird. And I just thought...I just thought, at least there's _you_ ," Kieren says, and in that moment, Simon isn't sure he's ever hated himself more.

Self-loathing is something he's familiar with, sort of comes with the territory of gay Catholic guilt and being a junkie. But for all the family dinners where he was too high to speak, the missed birthdays, even finding out he killed his own mother, seeing the devastation right in front of him, in the hunch of Kieren's shoulders and the downcast white eyes, hurts more than he thought it could.

“It was like last time, Simon,” Kieren says, and then before Simon can work out how to react, he starts walking again, still in the direction of the bungalow. As if that doesn’t feel like a kick in the teeth. Simon stares after his back for a moment, comes to his senses, starts to follow.

There’s an angry curve to Kieren’s spine, now, and he’s clenching his fists at his sides. By grace of his longer legs, Simon catches up in a few strides, until they are walking side by side once more. Silence between them, just the howling wind, Simon not knowing what to say, a few more streets and they are walking up to the front door.

“Kieren,” he says, crowding the other man on the front step.

“No,” Kieren says. “I was so angry with you. I’m still angry with you.”

“Will you let me speak?” Simon asks, unlocking the door (a recent precaution, ever since word filtered back to him that the Undead Prophet had labelled him a traitor and Zoe had none too subtly indicated she would take the matter into her own hands) and gesturing for Kieren to go in first. “At least let me try and apologise?”

Kieren hesitates for a second; Simon realises he hasn’t been back here since Amy died, hasn’t had to live everyday with her ghost in the corner of each room and on each frayed doily. It’s just been Simon, not moving anything, not touching anything, just sleeping in his room and trying not to see all that used to be hers out of the corner of his eye.

“Kieren,” Simon says, reaches out and touches the other man’s hand. Kieren looks up at him with wide eyes. Gone is that fury, that righteous indignation. “Come on,” he says, gently lacing their fingers together, and stepping over the threshold.

There’s a moment when they stand with the door open and the wind is blowing sleet inside, before Simon gently closes the door. Kieren still flinches when it shuts, like it had slammed on his heels.

The bungalow still smells of Amy’s patchouli, and one of her coats is thrown over the table near the door. Everywhere he looks, Simon sees Amy, wonders if he will ever stop seeing her here, if it will ever stop hurting quite as much as it does. He remembers his father, living in the family home, seeing his mother everywhere he looks. Maybe it never goes away.

And, Jesus Christ, as if they didn’t have enough to talk about already.

They make a beeline for Simon’s room, and this time it’s Simon who hesitates in the doorway. Last time they had both been here, Kieren had bared himself to Simon, and in turn he had given himself over entirely to Kieren. Now, though, he’s not sure if they should even be in the same room. If, when Kieren finds out everything, he would even want to be in the same town as someone like Simon. Dead nerve endings and all, the bullet hole in Simon’s back is tingling. He presses himself against the doorway, illusion of space.

“Why did you have Blue Oblivion in your room?” Kieren asks. He’s sat himself on the end of Simon’s bed, still in his coat, windswept.

“Jesus, Kieren,” Simon says. He’s suddenly thirsty, thirstier than he’s ever been in either of his lives. The question has taken him off guard, like everything Kieren does, spanner in the works and all the other cliches he can call to mind. He shakes his head, tries to clear it.

“What?” Kieren shoots the question like an accusation. “Were you planning on going rabid? Were you _trying_ to give Gary a reason to shoot you?”

“I didn’t-,” Simon starts to say, just to shut Kieren up, because how is he meant to even give him an answer if he keeps asking questions? But the answer dies in his throat. Kieren is still looking expectant. “I didn’t have a plan for it.”

“Bullshit.”

“I didn’t,” Simon says, takes a step further into the room. Kieren holds his gaze. “Not a real plan, anyway. I was given it.”

“By the Undead Prophet.” It isn’t a question.

“By the Undead Prophet.”

“Is that why you went into the city? So he could give you a plan to use it?”

Simon knows he should tell the truth. “Yes,” he says instead. Figures it’s not a total lie.

“Have you used it before?” Kieren asks.

A shudder passes through Simon. His denial is angry and honest. “No,” he says. “I haven’t. I don’t do that anymore.” A word of truth, because after he had been given the Blue Oblivion, so small and powerful, he had realised he could never force himself to take it, to go back to that.

Kieren nods. The air isn’t clear yet, but apparently it’s enough for now, because he shucks his coat. It’s too big, would be a better fit on Simon, and it pools around him. He tugs his suit jacket off, too, and Simon does the same, folding it in half and draping it over the chair in the corner.

"I didn't think..." Kieren starts to say, then shakes his head, looks to the floor.

Simon steps forward again. "Didn't think what?"

"That it'd be so hard to be back here without Amy," he finishes.

Simon doesn't stop himself this time, reaching out and pulling Kieren to his feet; there's no resistance when he presses a palm to his cheek. Instead, Kieren leans into his hand.

"It doesn't last forever," Simon says. "The grief. Not like this, at least."

Kieren nods. "It's too quiet without her here," he says. "She would've barged in on us by now."

"Asked if we wanted to go on a day trip."

Kieren's laugh is more of a choked off sob. He lifts a hand to loosen his tie but his fingers are trembling too much, even as Simon watches him try to stop the shake.

"Hey," Simon says, reaching for the Windsor knot himself, and covering Kieren’s hand with his own. "I've got it."

With a painful slowness, he undoes the tie, carefully sliding it from under Kieren's collar. Kieren's eyes are locked with his when he moves his fingertips to the top button of his shirt.

"This okay?" Simon asks.

Kieren's nod is almost imperceptible, but it's there. Simon pops the top button open, revealing an inch of white throat. He searches Kieren's face for any sign of distress, but there's nothing in those wide white eyes.

"I don't know if we should—,"

Simon is silenced by the press of Kieren's lips to his, sure and strong in their intention. He's reminded of their first kiss, that night when Kieren had turned up at the bungalow with his mousse smeared, contact missing, his body alight with rage, and Simon had been so surprised and so fucking pleased he had forgotten to kiss back for a second.

Now, though, he wastes no time, moving his hands from Kieren's collar and weaving one through his hair, lets the other rest against his neck, where his pulse would have once thrummed. They're pressed together as closely together as they can be, and it isn't as though they have to breathe, but there's something so overwhelming that Simon needs to pull away, moving his lips to the corner of Kieren's mouth, down his jaw, to the spot just below his ear.

Kieren sighs his name when Simon bites down, scraping his teeth against cold skin. He is fumbling with Simon's tie, tremors replaced by nervousness, by blinding and confusing lust, by sheer need, and Simon moves away long enough to continue unbuttoning Kieren's shirt.

"Jesus, I hate these clothes," Kieren says, at last managing to loosen Simon's tie, moving onto the buttons with haste.

They grow frantic, then, peeling layers off each other, leaving them a mess on the floor. With shirts discarded, more skin to explore, Kieren presses himself to Simon again, hands roaming. Simon shivers when Kieren's fingertips lightly skate over the new scar on his back.

But Simon would much rather be in his bedroom at the bungalow with Kieren than back in the cemetery, doesn't need reminding of what almost happened to Kieren, how he almost happened to Kieren, so he kisses him again, unbuckles Kieren's belt with ease.

There's no shame left, not anymore, no embarrassment or need to hide. They toe off their shoes, kick them away, trousers and pants to follow, and then there is just so much skin to be explored, smooth and pale and endless. Kieren backs them up until they're on the bed again, working their way up the sheets slowly, refusing to stop touching, stop sharing breath for even a moment. Simon hovers over him, poised on one elbow.

"You're beautiful," he says, more of an exhale, and Kieren reaches his head up to kiss him.

Most of their kisses have been frantic, or angry, or hidden. There has always been something that could disturb, be it neighbours or Amy or Simon's own conscience. This time, though, there is nothing to disrupt the moment, and the press of Kieren's mouth is sweet and soft and so full of tenderness that it makes Simon's head spin. He doesn't think he's ever been kissed like that, alive or undead.

Simon could keep kissing Kieren for hours, would be content to spend the whole rest of his undead life kissing Kieren like that. But Kieren, pale and lean and the sharp planes of his body smooth against Simon’s chest, is shifting beneath him, pressing their bodies even closer. Simon tries to slow him, wants to make this moment last. He doesn’t know if there will be another one like it, or if Kieren will even want to be in the same town as him when he finds out what was meant to happen. He wants to take the time to memorise each crevice, every inch of skin. Commit to memory the sounds of their bodies together, the moans, the murmurs. Let these moments last a lifetime, Simon thinks, prays, wishing he could taste Kieren’s mouth on his.

Kieren, though, is chasing more than that, is pressing himself against Simon insistently, rutting into him, dragging teeth down his jaw, his neck, his collarbone, as if they could bruise one another, doesn’t have the patience for exploration, excavation, the slow uncovering of the secrets of their bodies, and try as he might, Simon is powerless to resist, to deny Kieren of anything that he wants.

They move as one, swallowing each other’s moans with kisses, wet and open mouthed and messy, hands roaming blindly. Simon rolls his hips, almost comes at the sound of Kieren’s high pitched whimper, staves off release just in time, but the sensation has turned Kieren frantic. It wipes away Simon’s desire for slow, so he does it again, reaches a hand down and strokes them together.

Kieren is chanting his name, a litany of desperation. His nails dig into Simon’s shoulder, and Simon is shaking with the effort of holding himself up, and—

Kieren comes apart beneath him, eyes shut tight, groans low and long as Simon strokes him through it, strokes them together, and the sight of it is enough to tip him over the edge. It takes all the strength in him not to collapse on top of Kieren, release punched out of him, fast enough to surprise. His arm gives out from where it has been holding him and he topples to the side, facing Kieren, still starry eyed.

He’s barely aware, still coming down, but can feel the bed moving, Kieren trembling beside him. Afterglow cut short when he realises what’s happening, and he reaches over the small divide, a hand to Kieren’s face.

“Hey, hey,” he says, gentle, because Kieren is staring up at the ceiling, doesn’t want to startle him, doesn’t want to embarrass. There’s no tears, but there doesn’t need to be, the look on Kieren’s face enough, and Simon props himself back up. “Come here.”

Kieren lets himself be manoeuvred, his head under Simon’s chin, arms holding each other tight. Simon thinks that maybe they should pull a blanket on, maybe for the sake of Kieren’s modesty, but there’s no chance they are letting go of each other just yet.

“I’m so sorry, Kieren,” he says, his lips against Kieren’s hairline, pressing gently. “I never should have left you.”

Kieren’s sob is a full body reaction, a jolt in Simon’s arms. Simon squeezes his own eyes shut, holds Kieren a little tighter, a little closer to him.

“If you leave again,” Kieren says, “I don’t know that I’ll be able to do this again. Take you back.” He pauses. "I can't do that again. Go through it."

"I know," Simon says. "I know, I'm sorry."

He keeps murmuring into Kieren's hair, soothing words and apologies laced together, rubbing a hand in circles on his back until Kieren is drawing deep, even breaths. Simon doesn't want to fall asleep, wants to remember everything about the moment. Carefully, he looks down, sees where Kieren's golden eyelashes are brushing his cheekbones, how his whole face has softened, relaxed.

The next thing he knows, it is snowing outside and his chest feels damp. Kieren is still wrapped around him, close. For want of a better phrase, he sleeps like the dead. Only this time, once Simon has properly woken up and looked down, something is wrong, and then there is the panic.

"Jesus Christ," Simon says, gently shaking Kieren. "God, Kieren, wake up."

Kieren is bleeding black, and it's pooling on Simon's bare chest. The bottom half of Kieren's face is covered, and it takes Simon shaking him again, this time with real force, to wake him up properly.

"What?" Kieren asks, half conscious, then looking at Simon's chest. "Jesus, Simon, you're bleeding."

Simon almost feels hysterical, the scene so bizarre; both of them naked, half asleep, black blood all over them, on Simon's sheets.

"Come on," Simon says, beckoning Kieren, who seems to have realised that he is in fact the one who is bleeding and is looking for something to hold against his face, towards the bathroom. "Have you had your shot today?"

"Uh-huh," Kieren says, nodding as best as he can with his head tilted back. "S’morning."

"What the fuck," Simon says, more to himself, trying to find a cloth he can use to start cleaning them up with.

"Don't worry," Kieren mumbles, reaching around Simon in the tiny bathroom to turn the shower on full. He gives up trying to stop the bleeding, realising it has mostly finished, steps over the edge of the bathtub. Steam is already starting to curl in the bathroom. The last trail of black blood trickles onto Kieren’s upper lip. "Come here."

Powerless to resist, as ever, Simon follows, and in the minuscule pink bathtub, he and Kieren stand together under the spray. All at once, the intimacy of the situation hits Simon.

In his first life, intimacy like this had never been a priority. You fucked someone because you were drunk or high or you needed something from them or you were a party. He can count on one hand the number of people he's had sex with sober before Kieren, and there's even less he had sex with sober and out of choice. Sleeping with someone after sex is still new, let alone sharing a shower in the light of day.

In his second life, Simon never wants to miss a moment, not if it means this with Kieren, close enough to share breath, the world outside obscured by steam and hot water. It feels safe in the cocoon, safer when Kieren lets Simon wipe away the black blood from his face in gentle motions, when Kieren presses his hand to Simon's chest, feeling for a phantom heartbeat.

Agonisingly slow, Simon washes the rest of Kieren's body. They don't sweat, so it's less an act of cleanliness, more an act of comfort. Of love, says something in Simon's brain as he shampoos Kieren's hair, but he won’t let himself think that word. The room is hot and smells of soap and flowers, the body wash that Amy had used, the world making him dizzy.

Everyone has said that the undead are unfeeling, senses dulled, but nothing Simon ever took in his first life, nothing he ever did and no one he ever loved, has made him feel quite as much as he does now. Everything is illuminated, hyper real, and, alive or undead, nothing will ever live up to this.

“I know there’s things you’re not telling me,” Kieren says, quiet against the stream of the shower. He’s running a wet flannel along Simon’s arms, pausing over the track marks as if he could just wash them away. “About the ULA. About that day.”

He presses the cloth to the angriest mark, the last one, right in the crook of Simon’s left elbow. Blackened veins bloom from its centre, and Simon watches them ripple as he clenches his fist, watches them disappear under the cloth. “And other things, too,” Kieren says. He is watching, too. “About who you were before.”

“Does that matter?” Simon asks. “Who I was before?”

“It’s who you are, still,” Kieren says. “We can’t wipe all of that away.”

He finishes with Simon’s arms, beckons him to turn around, and even though he can’t feel the temperature, is blind to the heat of the shower or the tickle of the flannel, he still shivers when Kieren starts to clean around the bullet wound. With pressure so light Simon could be imagining it, he moves down to the scar on his spine, the open flesh there.

“It matters to me,” Kieren says. “I want this with you, I want _you_. But I need to know you, too. Not just who you are since the Rising.”

Simon hangs his head forward. He knew Kieren wanted something with him, wouldn’t have kissed him otherwise, but hearing the words come out makes something ache. “I’ll tell you everything,” he promises, “even when you change your mind.”

Arms around Simon’s waist, Kieren drops the flannel to the floor with a heavy slap, presses his body flush to Simon’s back. Ghost nerve endings, imagined hypersensitivity, Simon wants to move away, leans back into Kieren instead.

“Why would I change my mind?” Kieren asks, mouth moving against the skin behind Simon’s ear.

“I’m not as good as you,” Simon says. “Wasn’t before, not now, either. I’ve done things. Things I’ve never told anyone.”

Kieren squeezes him a little tighter. “We’ve all done things we’re not proud of.”

Simon wants to laugh, the idea of Kieren doing anything that he’s done so bizarre, so impossible. “Just wait,” he says, reaching and switching off the water before turning in Kieren’s arms. “Let me have today, and then I’ll tell you.”

They towel themselves off in silence, and Kieren redresses in his funeral suit, lets Simon fix his tie when he can’t get it straight. Simon drinks in the sight of Kieren so soft, so willing, trails fingertips along his neck, jaw, holds his face in his hands when they kiss goodbye.

“Tomorrow,” Kieren says, standing on the stoop. The snow has stopped, but it’s deep enough that there is an audible crunch when he stepped out. Roarton looks idyllic, a fairytale landscape, smoke curling from chimneys and snow on rooftops, twinkling Christmas lights strung up on eaves. Amy, Simon thinks, would have loved it.

“Tomorrow,” he agrees.

* * *

 

He doesn’t get much sleep that night.

After hours tossing, turning, he rises at five o’clock, well before the sun deigns to rise. He is anxious and jittery and there is a fleeting moment where he wishes he was still alive, just so he could take something to help calm him down, settles with opening all of the windows wide, an attempt to clear the air. It snowed more in the night, and the world outside is quiet.

He strips the sheets off his bed, where Kieren’s blood has seeped into the linen, and puts the washing machine on. It seems overly loud, the only thing he can hear, clanging around in his brain. He goes to the kitchen, force of habit from being alive, when, before dope became his saving grace, a cup of tea could calm almost any ail. Not that it’s really an option now, even if there had been teabags in the pantry.

Instead, he starts to clean.

There are old brains in the fridge, leftover bounty from the other ULA members, a small carton of milk Amy bought for Phillip for when he snuck over, and he puts it all unceremoniously into the bin. He fills the kitchen sink with hot soapy water, a bucket with hot water and vinegar, scrubs the inside of the fridge, clears boxes of crackers and bicarbonate soda from the cupboards and wipes the shelves down.

Nobody has really given the place a proper clean since he and Amy moved back, since the ULA turned it into their official Roarton headquarters, and so there is plenty for Simon to clean. He wipes the windows until they shine, finds a vacuum cleaner in the hall cupboard, realises the carpet is lighter than he’d always thought once he sucks up the thick layer of dust. The scribbles on the walls disappear under the sweeping movement of his cloth. He throws out whatever he finds that belongs to Zoe and the others, but takes care to check everything over once, in case it’s Amy’s. Only at the end, when the rest of the bungalow is clean, does he go into her room, taking all of the items she had scattered through the house when she was alive and placing them on her bed.

Kieren arrives at nine o’clock, sharp, right as Simon realises there’s nothing left to clean.

“Morning,” Kieren says, voice light. He is more himself today, in jeans and a hoodie, big boots laced up tight. He looks younger, Simon thinks.

“Morning.” Simon. Less light.

“Why’re all the windows open?” Kieren asks, stepping past him and into the bungalow. He looks around, curious. “Have you been cleaning?”

“Couldn’t sleep,” Simon says, like it’s a worthwhile excuse.

Kieren smiles, small, but doesn’t reach out to him. But, God, how Simon wants to reach out to him.

Kieren keeps going down the hall, past Simon’s bedroom, to the sitting room. “It looks good,” Kieren calls, and Simon hears the windows being shut before he follows. “I didn’t realise the carpet was so light.”

Simon laughs, once. “That’s what I thought.”

For the second time that day, Simon wishes he could drink tea. Give him something to focus on while he prepared himself for the inevitable.

“So,” Kieren says, sitting himself down on the couch, right in the middle.

“So,” Simon says. He takes a seat in the armchair, leans back into it, how he sat when he gave his speeches. A false sense of power, and Kieren recognises the posturing, eyes him warily.

“Why did you join them?” Kieren asks.

Simon nods, just a couple of times. It’s the first question he expected, but expectation won’t make what he has to say any easier. Kieren knows of Simon’s time in the treatment centre, a conversation had their first night together, unavoidable when he was stripped bare. He knows about hearing the Prophet, the experiments. The torture, Kieren had called it.

But the rest? What came before? Simon hasn’t told anyone that. He has kept his secret where his heart used to be, stone and crumbling.

“My family, my father, he wasn’t as accepting as yours,” Simon says. Kieren doesn’t say anything, doesn’t ask for further explanation, but he raises his eyebrows, silent leading. Simon feels like he’s about to be sick, lets the words tumble out before he can stop himself. “I killed my mother, Kieren. After I rose, I went home, and I killed my own mum.”

Kieren makes a strangled, cut off noise. The look on his face is one of horror; Simon doesn’t blame him.

“After I went to the treatment centre, when they let me back out, I tried to go back. My father picked me up. We had fish and chips.” It all seems like a dream, now. “I thought, maybe, I could make amends. Be a better son than I had been when I was alive.

“Dad couldn’t even look at me,” Simon says, and gives a humourless laugh. “I don’t blame him. I couldn’t look at myself, either. Didn’t even last a full night back with him. He kicked me out, middle of the night. Back then, it was even more dangerous for people like us to be out on the streets. I spent a week, maybe more, out there.”

“Simon—,” Kieren starts, but if Simon stops, he’s not sure he’ll be able to start again.

“I did it before, when I was alive. Spent a while sleeping rough in Dublin, then in London. But it was worse this time. There was nothing to dull the memories, the feelings.” His hands are trembling now, and he clenches his fists tightly, then holds his hands together, attempt at keeping them steady. It doesn’t work. “I was ready to die again. I nearly did, one night, when some HVF nutters almost got me. I didn’t have anywhere else, and Julian had given me his phone number when we were back in the treatment centre. Spent the last of my money on the phone call.”

“What was it like?” Kieren’s voice is so quiet, and he’s leaning forward, elbows on his knees. “When you got there?”

“Like coming home,” Simon says. Two weeks ago, he would have felt a warm glow at the memory. Now, though, he just feels sick. “Julian and the others, they welcomed me. They didn’t ask any questions, didn’t care what I did when I was alive or before the treatment centre. It was the first time in a decade that anyone had been happy to see me.”

When he lifts his head, Kieren looks like he’s fighting to stay in his seat. It’s not pity on his face, though. It’s sympathy, and something else.

“Did you believe it? Everything the ULA were saying? Everything _you_ were saying?” Kieren asks.

“I did,” Simon admits, “for a while. Some of it. After everything at Norfolk, I believed what they were saying about the living. About what they thought of people like us.”

Kieren nods, slowly. “And the violence?” He asks. “I know someone who was killed in that attack, the one that happened just before you and Amy came here. He was a good person. He didn’t deserve what happened to him.”

Simon clenches his jaw. “I didn’t speak against it,” he admits after a moment. “I was a Disciple. I had to spread the message.”

“Doesn’t seem much that’s holy about killing innocent people,” Kieren says. He’s leaning back now, trying to put as much distance between them. When that doesn’t work, he stands, walks into the kitchen.

Simon waits a minute before following him, as much for his own sake as it is for Kieren’s.

“I told you,” Simon says, waiting in the doorway. Kieren is standing at the sink, staring down the drain. “I’m not proud of what I did, Kieren.”

“But you did it,” Kieren says. “You let it happen.”

“What was I meant to do?” Simon asks, voice still low and level, and he is making a conscious effort to keep it from wavering. “I didn’t have a home to go back to, parents who still loved me, who could even look at me. I had nothing, Kieren. Until I met you, the ULA was the only thing that cared about me. Until you, it was the only thing that mattered.”

Immediate, a rush of hot embarrassment at his declaration. Simon shrinks away when Kieren looks at him, ducks his head.

“And now?” Kieren asks. He doesn’t step forward, doesn’t try to close the gap with anything but his voice. “Does the ULA matter now?”

Tense, Simon shakes his head. “I don’t believe,” he says. “Not anymore.”

“What happened?” Kieren asks, and this time it is Simon’s turn to tuck tail and run, returning to the lounge room where he sits back down in the armchair. This game of cat and mouse, hiding questions and answers from each other. The morning is golden and bright through the window, and he can’t help but feel it’s mocking him.

Kieren follows, resuming his seat on the couch. “What happened when you went to the city?”

“The Undead Prophet had a message for me,” Simon says. He can’t look at Kieren now, not the way the sunlight is casting his hair into a halo, his body and his heart open for Simon’s admission. Instead, he focuses on the carpet, picks out an imaginary pattern in the weave. “A mission. To do with the first risen.”

His throat gets tight, because even though Simon has always been good at talking, at telling stories and lies, he has never been one for confession. Once, in his first life, when he was high and delirious, he had stumbled into a confessional at an anonymous church in London. There had been no sound from the other side, but Simon had not stopped talking, ravings of a junkie, pouring out. No one had absolved his sins that day. No one had since.

“What was the mission, Simon?” Kieren already knows, can already guess, Simon can tell from the measuredness of his voice.

“I had to kill them,” Simon says. His voice is barely a whisper. “To bring about the Second Rising I had to kill the First Risen. The twelfth hour, the twelfth day, the twelfth month.”

“Jesus Christ, Simon,” Kieren says. “Why?”

“It was what I was told to do. What I had to do.”

“Who?” Kieren asks. “Who is the—?”

The question trails off into nothing. Kieren has answered this already, before Simon has to, if Simon could even force himself to admit it. He’s not sure that he could.

“You weren’t there to save me.” Not a question. A revelation, all the wrong sort. “You were going to kill me.”

If it was possible, Simon would say that Kieren gets paler. Whatever light in his eyes seems to dim, and he scrambles to his feet.

“I think I’m going to be sick,” he says, stumbling into the kitchen. “Don’t touch me.”

Simon pulls his bare feet up onto the armchair, wraps his arms around his legs, pushes his face into his knees. He can hear Kieren retching into the sink, the splatter of the black stuff against the stainless steel. Footsteps, the front door opening, slamming shut.

He is alone.

* * *

 

“Simon?”

Minutes? Hours? Time has vanished, and he is still there, curled into the chair, head on the armrest. He’s watched the world grow dark around him, seen it lighten, and now darken again. He has slept, he must have, or just can’t remember everything that happened in between. Mind in lockdown.

Again, “Simon?”

He is asleep now, he tells himself, is dreaming. It feels like the sort of dream he used to have back when he was alive, barely lucid and flitting in and out of consciousness. Impossibilities come to life.

Footsteps, and from the corner of his eye, he sees a figure in the doorway of the kitchen.

“Christ, Simon.”

And he must be dreaming, because Kieren is in front of him, on his knees. Kieren’s hand is on his cheek, his forehead.

“What have you done?” Kieren asks, smoothing his hair back with a careful hand. There are lines of worry around his eyes, his forehead, and his eyes are searching. Kieren touches a finger to Simon's mouth, and it comes away black. “Jesus, Simon, what have you done?”

“Kieren.” Simon’s voice is hoarse, sounds terrible, but just the one word seems to be enough to put Kieren at ease. He licks his lips, realises they are wet.

“I’m here,” Kieren says, the creases in his face beginning to smooth. “I’m here.”

“I’m sorry,” Simon says, convinced he is still dreaming. His body is stiff when he tries to uncurl it, wants to touch Kieren’s face, even if this is all in his imagination. “I’m so sorry.”

“I know,” Kieren says. “I’m here, I know.”

Slowly, reality begins to come back to Simon. Kieren is here, is sitting on the floor of the bungalow, is brushing his hair back from his face. He is stiff, almost sore, and it takes an effort to even lift his head. When he does, there is a black stain on the fabric.

“Have you had your shot?” Kieren asks, keeping his voice quiet.

“I don’t...what day is it?”

“Tuesday afternoon. I left yesterday morning.”

Simon shakes his head. “I haven’t—,”

Kieren shushes him, gets to his feet. While he is gone, Simon sits up, wipes at his face. His hand comes away with streaks of black, and he touches his fingertips back to his nose. There’s black stuff oozing from both nostrils, viscous, and his head is aching. He is starting to rise from his chair when Kieren returns.

“Hey, sit back down,” Kieren says. He’s holding the medication in one hand, a dripping cloth in the other. For a second, it looks like he’s about to come forward, to wipe up Simon’s face himself, but then he just hands the flannel over instead, moves around to the back of the armchair. His fingertips are light on Simon’s collar. “Can I?”

“Yeah,” Simon says, pressing the cloth up to his face. He starts a little when Kieren touches his neck, the spot around his injection site, where it opens up to the rest of the wound on his back.

“Sorry,” Kieren says, then depresses the trigger.

Simon winces; the effects of the medication are almost instant. The pain in his head lifts, clarity returning. With it, the memories of what he has said.

Now that he is cleaned up, Kieren doesn’t seem to see the need to be so close to him. He moves away, to the corner of the couch this time, as far away from Simon as he can be. Simon aches to follow.

“After I left yesterday,” Kieren says, “I went and talked to Amy. And Rick.”

“What’d they have to say?” Simon asks. His mouth feels furry, like after a comedown.

Kieren’s lips quirk up, just a twitch. “Not much, actually,” he says. “But they listened.”

“What did you talk about?”

“You, funnily enough,” Kieren says. “I told Rick all about you. About what we do together. About how you look at me like I’m something sacred, and about how fucking terrifying it is.”

Simon can’t stop the choked noise before it comes out.

“No one’s ever looked at me the way you look at me,” Kieren continues. “Rick never did. Even when we were alone, he was always scared his dad would find us. Everything with Rick was done in the dark. I told him that being with you brought everything back into the light. The good and the bad.”

“Kieren, I—,”

Kieren holds a hand up and the words die in his throat. “Rick was never honest with me. He loved me. I know that. But he wasn’t honest with himself, and he would never have told me, either. I don’t know that you love me, Simon, but I know you wouldn’t have told me those things about yourself unless you felt something for me."

"And Amy?" Simon asks. "What did you say to her?"

Now, Kieren smiles, and he looks at Simon with gentle eyes. "I told her what you said about me," he says. "And I told her I feel the same. Even after what you were going to do for the ULA. I can't say for sure, but I think she would've been pleased to hear that."

"She always hated it when we fought," Simon says, and Kieren laughs, and it's the sweetest thing Simon has ever heard.

"We can't just go back to how we were before yesterday," Kieren says, growing serious again. "Everything that's happened between us, I'm not throwing it away. But before anything else happens, we're going back to the beginning."

Simon's head is still too full of cotton wool to understand.

"We sort of skipped the whole 'getting to know each other' bit. Went straight for the intense declarations and shagging thing," Kieren says.

Simon huffs out a laugh. He wants to reach out, knows it will win him no favours if he does. "Slowly, then," he says.

"Slowly," Kieren says, and maybe it's wishful thinking, but Simon thinks he's looking at him like he'd rather do anything but go slow. "Do you...are you feeling better? Alright?"

"Yeah," Simon says. He's embarrassed, doesn't say anything, looks at the spot just over Kieren's left shoulder. "Thanks for the shot."

"Do you want to talk?" Kieren asks.

But now awake and upright, Simon doesn't want to stare at the four walls of the sitting room anymore. "Let's go for a walk," he says. "You know, like normal people. Get to know each other."

Kieren waits in the sitting room while Simon goes to get changed, ooze on the front of his sweater. He's strangely nervous when he pulls out his clothes, decides on the white button down he had worn when he'd had lunch with Kieren's family, as though Kieren hasn't just found him a wreck in his own living room, as though his choice of shirt will have any swaying power over the man waiting for him in the other room.

It's overcast, a typically blustery Roarton day, the sun already dying behind a thick bank of cloud. Kieren shivers when they step outside, right as a gust strikes up, wrapped in his heavy coat and a scarf flapping in the breeze.

"Cold," Kieren says, small voice, small consideration, and _that_ is something Simon files away to talk about later.

They walk to the end of the street, companionable silence, no one else about, before Kieren says, "Siblings?" and it takes Simon a moment to catch up, still thinking about the bloody weather, before he answers with a shake of his head.

"Favourite food when you were alive?" Kieren asks.

This time the answer is immediate. "Curry," Simon says. "The proper spicy stuff."

Kieren makes a face. "I don't think they really do spicy in Roarton," he says.

Simon finds out about Kieren's love of roast lamb, his mother's recipe for the perfect trifle, they share stories about childhood birthdays, Christmases, family holidays. As they walk, Simon points out Rick's house, now standing empty and lonely, unlit by the Christmas lights that glitter across everyone else's eaves and front paths. He tells Simon stories about growing up in Roarton as they walk, spurred on by houses and swing sets. Simon's answers are shorter, stilted; unless he was espousing for the ULA, no one ever much likes to hear what he has to say, and besides, he'd much rather hear about Kieren.

"What about university?" Kieren asks. "Did you go?"

Simon nods, once. "Theology. And I was going to minor in literature," he says.

"Was?"

"I didn't finish." Simon shrugs.

"Why not?"

They're skirting along the edge of the woods, the day rapidly darkening around them, and Simon gives Kieren a look, trying to relay the message without having to say it. Without having to admit what really went wrong. That he was at fault.

Kieren fixes him with a steady stare. "How old were you? The first time, I mean."

"Nineteen," Simon admits. There's a sour taste in his mouth. "Managed to keep in under wraps for a while. University kicked me out with one semester to go."

"Why?" Kieren asks, but Simon has no plans to go down that path, not today, preferably not ever. But: "Simon, you know the deal."

There are many ways to tell this story, none of them good, not for Simon, but he doesn't have a choice. He tests each word before speaking.

"I got violent," Simon says. "I was, I suppose, seeing one of my professors. He'd give me money, keep me from failing. He was talking about rehab for me, wanted more than I did. When I had enough, I broke into his flat, tried to steal the money he kept in the bedroom. He caught me. I was high."

He doesn't bother finishing. Kieren can make his own mind up, there's no good side to the story, no version in which Simon doesn't beat his professor halfway to hospital, where out of some misguided attempt at fixing him the professor refuses to press charges, calls Simon's parents, has him carted off to rehab. There's no version of this where Simon could ever be good enough for Kieren.

Kieren's breath is a noisy exhale. "And after?"

"Ran away from rehab. Went back, ran away again," Simon says. "Less falling off the wagon. More like hurtling out of a plane without a parachute." The last time, at least. Three months sober, smiling family photographs and almost with his head screwed back on, wiped away in an afternoon; two days later, enough heroin in his veins to put him in a bodybag.

"What about now?" Kieren asks. "If you could, would you go back to that?"

Simon doesn't tell him that after his father kicked him out, he did everything he could to try and find something to dull the senses, injected what he could get off junkies who were too far gone to know what he was, spent days vomiting up black bile once the drugs hit his system. He doesn't mention that Julian was the one who brought him back from that, or how after he got the message from the Undead Prophet he almost caved again.

Instead:

"I found something worth staying sober for."

Kieren coughs, lifts a hand to hide his smile, but Simon still hears it, feels the thrill it sends through his silent heart.

"Come on," Kieren says when he has managed to set his face straight. "There's someone you should meet."

Simon realises where they have ben walking to, Kieren gently leading the way to the cemetery. He has an idea of whose grave they're headed to, is unsurprised when they stop.

"Hi, Rick," Kieren says, his hands shoved deep into his pockets and eyes firmly on the modest headstone. There are fresh flowers on the grave, and Simon has his suspicions as to who brought them. "This is Simon. He's the one I was telling you about."

"Uh, hello," Simon says. He's fairly certain the body in the box below the earth is thoroughly dead, with no chance of hearing what they're saying, but Kieren is looking expectant.

"He doesn't say much," Kieren says. "Well, that's not true. Talks a lot of rubbish when he gets the chance, actually. Full of hot air, he is."  
Simon's turn to hide his smile, thinks he would be turning pink if he still had a pulse.

"I don't think you'd like each other, to be honest," Kieren continues. "You'd say he's full of crap. He'd say the same thing about you, actually, Rick. But he's getting better, Rick. He's trying to be better."

"For you," Simon adds without really thinking about it, but Kieren looks at him like he's just warmed up and come back to life.

"For me," he says. Shapes the words in his mouth, then says them again, almost silently. "Yeah, Rick, so you know how I said that Simon and I were going to try and go slow? I don't think that's going to work."

Simon raises an eyebrow, turns to say something, but then Kieren is pressing his lips to Simon's, and Simon can't help but reach up and hold Kieren's face, as if terrified he will vanish, as if Kieren could just fade away and slip from his grasp. In the depths of his mind, he thinks that there is probably something unsavoury or unlucky about kissing in a cemetery, certainly about kissing at the graveside of your partner's ex-whatever Rick was, but Kieren doesn't seem to mind, and Simon still isn't ready to let go.

Simon knows, then, when one of Kieren's hands works its way into Simon's coat, grips his hip, pulls him closer, chest to chest and mouth to mouth, that he will tell him everything. Every terrible thing he did, every person he broke, it will all come out, only to Kieren, the only person he could tell. He will tell of the moment he realised he could never have hurt him, how he was hoping the bullet would land a little higher, how he was ready to die the moment he jumped in front of the gun.

"We've still got a lot to learn about each other," Kieren says when they break apart, and Simon doesn't quite know what to do with his hands now they aren't touching Kieren. For a moment he forgets where they are, thinks Kieren is talking to him. "But I think we might just get there."

It starts to rain on the walk back to the bungalow, the sky giving in and unleashing torrents. Kieren laughs, reaches back and grabs Simon's hand, pulls him faster along the street, an almost run. Simon turns his face up, wishing he could feel the cold and the wet, just to let him know that this isn't a dream.  
There will be harder conversations to have, Simon knows. It won't just be kissing in the street, in the pouring rain, Kieren's hand in his, turning to look at him like he is bursting with light. There are questions yet to be answered and past sins to be uncovered. The kinds of conversations Simon has always run from, would be running from it it wasn't for Kieren.

Kieren stops them both, the street at the end of the Walker's driveway, and kisses him, slow and deep. A fleeting second of wonder — should they be doing this, out in the open where Sue or Steve could see — before he kisses back, hands find the shape of Kieran's face, smoothing thumbs over cheekbones, and Kieren moans, just a little, against his lips.

In the back of his mind, he thinks that maybe he is still curled in the armchair back at the bungalow, maybe a side effect of missed dosages. Thinks that maybe this is that Heaven he has heard and spoken so much about, this dream. Thinks, prays, that if it is, he will dream a little longer.

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave a comment/kudos if you'd like!


End file.
